This movie may change how you buy clothes

Editor’s note: Updating to clarify a quote from Roger Lee, CEO of Tal Group

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — A documentary film looking at the human, social and environmental cost behind the clothes we wear is attempting to change the fashion industry in the same way that consumers’ growing appetite for organic and natural food has altered the food industry.

In “The True Cost,” a 92-minute film officially releasing this Friday and already translated in 19 languages, 28-year-old filmmaker Andrew Morgan juxtaposes images of fashion models strutting down runways, YouTube shopping hauls and Black Friday deal shoppers storming through retailers’ doors against images of garment workers sewing clothes in a cramped space, mountains of discarded clothing, corpses side by side after a garment-factory building in Bangladesh collapsed in 2013, killing more than 1,100 people.

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And it was what happened at that building named Rana Plaza that led to the film. Shortly after the tragedy, Morgan saw a photo of two young boys walking in front of a wall of missing-person signs.

“It was the photo that made me grab the article,” Morgan said in an interview. “By the time I finished the article. I remember standing there. I was completely floored: Why hadn’t I heard of this? I would have thought a lot of clothes are machine-produced on the mass-market side. It made me feel it’s a story that’s been invisible in plain view.”

He began researching for the film, which explores the life cycle of today’s cheap and fast-changing clothing styles, and the damage it leaves in its wake. He raised $70,000 in a Kickstarter campaign and more money from individual investors later on. In all, he needed about $500,000. To ensure the movie is “autonomous,” no funding has come from companies, nongovernmental organizations or foundations, he said.

He also landed the backing of Livia Firth, creative director of sustainability brand consultancy Eco-Age and wife of British actor Colin Firth. Morgan, who didn’t know Firth before the movie, said she signed on as an executive producer after seeing a cut of the film and opened the doors for him to interview designer Stella McCartney, who is known for her environmentally friendly practices. Tom Ford, another high-end designer, was among the celebrities who attended a London screening Wednesday evening.

“This movie’s going to shock the fashion world,” movie mogul Harvey Weinstein reportedly said at the film’s first public screening in Cannes earlier this month. Weinstein, whose wife is fashion designer Georgina Chapman, doesn’t have any ties to the movie.

Indeed, what’s not in the movie suggests how uncomfortable the subject is for many in the fashion industry. Morgan said he went to “great lengths” to talk to more than 25 “major” designers and brands. While some engaged in lengthy conversations with him away from the cameras, none agreed to be filmed.

The film, he added, deliberately doesn’t point the finger at any one company.

“This doesn’t have to be liberal versus pro-business debate,” Morgan told MarketWatch. “What it has to become is an honest debate. This isn’t about ‘Let’s throw the system out the window.’ I’m not against the idea of competition and profit and businesses. ... Those are really good forces. We can channel those forces in a more humane and more sustainable way. It’s very similar to what’s happened with the food movement. A lot of it starts with customer demand.”

So-called fast-fashion retailers like H&M
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Inditex’s Zara, and Forever 21 have become the envy of the industry for their ability to quickly churn out cheap items.

The film “raises important questions for the fashion industry which H&M welcomes,” the Swedish retailer said in an emailed statement to MarketWatch. “We have already taken significant steps to address the valid concerns raised. These initiatives take time and require patience but we are fully committed to them. We want our customers to feel proud to wear clothes made in Bangladesh and Cambodia.”

H&M said it’s the biggest user of organic cotton in the world and it has developed “closed loop” technologies to make garments from recycled fabrics.

The movie will open in independent theaters in New York, Los Angeles and London, and be available beginning Friday through iTunes
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Amazon
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and other video-on-demand platforms as well as on DVDs and Blu-rays. It’s expected to be available on Netflix Inc.
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later.

The film seeks to show the human cost of the drop in apparel prices.

“Ultimately something has to give. Either the price of the product has to go up, or manufacturers have to shut down, or cut corners to make it work,” Roger Lee, CEO of Tal Group, said in the documentary. Tal Group said it makes one in six dress shirts sold in the U.S. and counts J.C. Penney Co.
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Gap’s
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Banana Republic brand, Nordstrom Inc.
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and Burberry
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among its customers.

Arif Jebtik, a Bangladesh garment-factory owner, recounted the message from his Western customers: “You better squeeze price because we are squeezing.” He told Morgan: “Because we want the business so badly, we don’t have any choice. [Customers] just want cheap clothes.”

The film follows a garment worker named Shima who decided to move her toddler from Dhaka, where she works, to live with her parents in a village that she visits only about once a year. Otherwise she would have to bring her daughter to the factory.

In a journey across 13 countries, including the U.S., Morgan stopped in India to explore the health and environmental impact of pesticides on cotton farms as well as dyes and other chemicals in tanneries. In Cambodia, he chronicled the violent government crackdown on garment workers seeking higher minimum wages in a country where apparel is the top export.

truecostmovie.com

Wastewater from tanneries in Kanpur India is reported to have polluted the ground drinking water.

Morgan also explored the flip side of low-cost factories. “They lead to better living standards” in developing countries, Benjamin Powell, director of the Free Market Institute at Texas Tech University, said on the film. “The alternative for those workers is much worse.”

The movie also showcases alternatives, such as the sustainable approach of Patagonia, a maker of high-end outdoor clothing.

For Morgan, the movie’s lessons have changed him in a way he hopes others will emulate.

Over the past two years, he’s only bought secondhand clothes for himself. His children, aged 7, 5, 3, and 2, mostly wear secondhand clothes or items bought through online clothing resellers.

And he and his wife now sells their children’s old clothing online. The film has “changed the conversation in our family. It’s just a much more thoughtful thing for me.”

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